Burning Blue
by AspectsOfEccentricity
Summary: Oneshot. May be later expanded on. SIOC as the Firebending Prodigy, Princess Azula.


**AN: We recently had an ****_AtLA _****marathon, and since Azula is Fox's favourite character, she decided to make this.**

Disclaimer: Own Avatar: the Last Airbender, we do not. Also own Master Yoda, we do not.

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><p><strong>Burning Blue<strong>

Burning.

Her world was burning.

Okay, that's an exaggeration. The world wasn't burning. That was just her apartment. There's no clear path. She'll just have to wing it and get to the exit as quickly as she can. She does remember where the fire exit is. Unfortunately, it's in the room she designated as a study, beside her bedroom which is where she is.

She hopes that the firemen will be there soon. Muttering prayers to various deities, she carefully makes her way out of her bedroom and towards her study. She holds a t-shirt in front of her nose and mouth, breathing conservatively.

She reaches the door to the study and hesitates. The doorknob is metal, easily heated and capable of causing burns. She shuts her eyes tightly, making her decision. She uses her breathing cloth as a mitt and opens the door quickly.

The inferno inside the study lashes out at her and she recoils, swearing and discarding the now burnt t-shirt turned mitt. She scans the room, noting the burnt furniture in her possible paths to the fire exit. She decides on the most straightforward path and resumes moving.

_Soon._ she tells herself. _Soon, I'll be out and safe._

The floor creaks and crackles ominously. She gulps fearfully, freezing in terror and dread. Nothing happens. Exhaling in relief, she continues toward the fire exit. As she arrives, a feeling of triumph overcomes her. She slides the window exit open when a rumbling crack sounds from above her. She looks up.

Then everything went black.

\\ V /

She awakens in a warm darkness. It is cramped, no. The walls are closing in?

She's getting pushed into a tube, suffocating. _Is this what apparition feels like? No wonder Harry Potter hates it._

A bright light blinds her and suddenly she's no longer being squeezed to death. She takes a good and large gulp of much needed air, accidentally swallowing the fluids covering her face. Hacking and coughing, she squirms as she is manhandled by what seem to be giant hands. Her limbs seem unusually unresponsive, like all her motor functions have been lost. The giant wipes her clean of the fluids.

"It's a girl, my Lord, my Lady." An old female voice near her says.

Was she in a hospital? And someone just gave birth? Someone royal? Why would she be near the maternity areas?

"Let me hold my daughter," says an exhausted woman, presumably the mother. She feels herself being shifted to another giant's arms. A large feminine hand brushes her face.

"Her name, your Highnesses?"

A male voice answers, "Azula, after my father Fire Lord Azulon."

The words 'fire lord' strikes a chord in her memory for some reason.

She opens her eyes and all she sees are multi-coloured blurs.

"Oh! She opened her eyes. Hello Princess Azula." The mother voice cooed from above her as a big hand shaped blur wiggles its finger-part blurs in her face.

Wait. What?

\\ V /

It takes three and a half months before she realizes that she is either having a strange hallucination or she died and was reborn.

Her new(not!) name is(not!) Azula. She has a mother named Ursa and a father named Ozai (their names are Harriet and Thomas). Azula has an older brother (she's the eldest of five; her, a brother, twins boy and girl, and another brother) named Zuko(images of fire and burn scars and the word honour come to mind).

She has a nice uncle named Iroh (tea and some board game) and a nice cousin named Luten. The grandfather named Azulon makes Azula feel nervous or scared for some reason. There are also many many servants as she is apparently a princess now.

But this is her new family and she wouldn't trade it for anything (yes she would, she wants her old life and family back, home_home_**home**_**home!**_).

\\ V /

Azula is six months old when she finally masters the art of crawling. She uses said art to follow her older brother 'Juujuu' and Mamma around. Of course, Zuko's only two so he doesn't really run so fast that Azula can't catch up, and Ursa deliberately slows down so Azula can follow and picks her up when she tires.

She doesn't really see her father around much, but he's a prince who probably helps with political stuff. Uncle Iroh is a General in the army as well as a prince and he's often away too, so there _might_ be a war.

Azula's not sure what to think about that realization. She remembers stories of war, fiction mostly but still plausible. Most had tragedies and trials and trouble, not happy fairy tales. Her new family's survival will be questionable as they are royals. Assassinations, kidnapping and hostage situations, political problems, and more galore.

...Gods, she's not sure her sanity will be intact, even if she survives the war.

\\ V /

Eight months and she can talk. Sort of. More like babble incoherently with some recognizable words, sometimes even short sentences.

Mother is quite impressed about that. Zuko's delighted. He can finally talk _with_ his sister instead of _at_ her.

Father drops by more frequently now, probably because she's a smarter than normal baby and he wants to see it for himself. Azula doesn't mind much. At least he's coming to see her. She misses having a complete family (mommy gets sad whenever daddy has to go on a business trip, daddy just gets colder and quieter when she goes out and he's left behind. The dinner table always feels lonely when one of them is missing).

\\ V /

It's Azula's first birthday and she's having a three-day party for some reason. Probably to introduce her to society. The complicated customs of being a royal continually confuses her.

But hey! At least she gets a lot of mandatory presents. Granted, if she were an actual baby mentally, she'd be ecstatic about receiving attention from all kinds of people. Since she _isn't_, she seriously wonders at the ridiculous extravagance of the upper class bourgeoisie. Seriously, what kind of person gives a baby extremely expensive and extremely breakable stuff? Rich people, apparently.

\\ V /

One of the celebration festival events is something called a demonstrative duel. Azula is curious as to what that is.

She's sitting in her father's lap overlooking a long platform. Two people step up onto the platform, removing their outer robe. All the two on the platform had on were a pair of pants, like exercise pants or gym pants. The duo then bowed to her grandfather, then to the rest of her immediate family and then finally to each other. And then they got into a martial arts position. Azula thinks that the 'duel' appears to be like one of those epic semi-fake battles master martial artists do to promote their disciplines.

And then somehow the pair on stage punch and kick flames at each other. Kind of like what Azula remembers of _Avatar_'s firebending…

Oh. Oh gods. This is _Avatar_. As in _Avatar: the Last Airbender_. With the element bending and four nations. And she's freaking Azula, the psycho fire princess.

Azula doesn't want to be known as a monster. She doesn't want to become a broken prodigy, genius gone mad. She wants her family whole, not scattered with her father jailed, mother no longer existing, her brother a scarred Lord and herself mad in an asylum.

And then Azula realizes, she can _change_ things! What she watched on _Avatar_ doesn't have to happen. She can change it all!

...But should she?

**-END-**


End file.
